clockspring3D posts
Posts: 471
Files: 959
Phantom Cavalcade Vase
This ghostly vase mode print ends up surprisingly rigid and robust as far as these things go! Presumably, that's because all that detail ends up adding plenty of extra material, and because all those indentations and protrusions effectively brace the form against movement in pretty much every di...
The Little Mummy
Hi hi, wonderful people!This little mummy can conveniently store any number of things in its capacious noggin, and also has a choice of stylish hats with which to accessorise!What really inspired me to follow this path was partly to make adorable big-eyed mummies, but also just to work out how to re...
Mechano-Bat Box
Howdy, wonderful people!Bats usually hang upside-down, rather than standing up, but maybe they would stand more if they had big, chunky boots like this bat does!Another significant difference between this bat and regular ones is the number of intermeshed gears it possesses. The wings and neck drive...
Pocket Radio Box
Howdy, wonderful people! While multimaterial printers are getting more accessible all the time it's still very satisfying to work out how to achieve a multi-colour print with just a regular normal printer. And for that there are two primary techniques: post-print-assemblies and filament changes...
Magnetic Frame Pods
Ahoy-hoy, wonderful people!Sometimes when ideas spring to mind they aren't so much visual as tactile. And this one is an excellent example of that! What I had pictured (figuratively speaking) was a series of components held in place by magnets, but free to move as a series of objects when push...
Flexionoid Articulated Lamp
Ah, hinges! This model may be a lamp, but it's secretly an excuse to explore elaborate hinges with in-built locking and adjustment mechanisms! Yep, those vertically-printing hinges include a lever to unlock the hinge and allow it to move freely, until the lever is released and a locking pin sl...
Cinnamon Secrets
Hi hi, wonderful people!Yes, it's time for more questionable food choices in printed form! Depending on where you are in the world, these might be cinnamon rolls or cinnamon scrolls, but either way these Cinnamon Secrets are designed to cleverly hide your valuable cylindrical items.It might be ...
Ribbon Basket
Hey there, wonderful people!Is it still papercraft if it's made of printed plastic? Probably not :P But I do love taking those papercraft ideas and bringing them into the printing space. Originally, this design was all about using decorative strips to give the suggestion of weaving, but that ...
Surface Orb (vase and regular modes!)
Hey hey, wonderful people!I'm a sucker for making colourful prints with basic techniques like filament swaps! But this model uses a somewhat different approach to taking advantage of that - the bottom layer has flexible extensions that are folded up and slotted into the walls of the container a...
Counterfold Case
Howdy, wonderful people!Why have one hinge on a lid when you can have six, right?! Some years ago I played around with different approaches to a geometric mechanical model known broadly as a kaleidocycle, where a set of rigid elements connected by normal, single-axis hinges was able to endlessly tu...
The Scanline Classic (for EL wire!)
Ahoy-hoy, wonderful people!Yes, it's an old-timey TV that incorporates EL wire to give that classic cathode ray scan line feel! And it's another print made up of a multitude of parts :DYou'll notice that the EL wire is wrapped around a caddy that keeps thing nice and neat! It's re...
Echoform Vase
Hi there, wonderful people!Some concepts just refuse to let go until they turn into some kind of reality, and this is one of those. I was contemplating some kind of classic vase design, but with things arranged around it that seemingly contravened the basic laws of vase mode printing, and that turn...
Quilted Case
Howdy, wonderful people!Yes, it's a padded, fabric-covered, 3D printed box! I had modelled hard plastic versions of upholstered things before, so it's a logical progression to actually add padding and fabric, right?!Let's have a look at how this is constructed. The panels on the box ar...
Resistor Boxes
Hi there, wonderful people!As you well know, I love closure and latching mechanisms! I've been exploring what are effectively printed springs lately, and it occurred to me that I could use a sprung stopper as a means of keeping something firmly closed.In the photos you'll see there's a ...
Blacksmith's Pail (no multimaterial required!)
Howdy, wonderful people!Multimaterial printing is great, but it really does have some downsides. Excessive extra print time and unreasonable material waste are realities that make us question whether the benefits are worth it. But contrast that with simple filament swaps at specific layers - in that...
Hex Tile Tub for Ikea Pegboards
Howdy, wonderful people! Pegboards are such useful things, but I noticed a distinct lack of hexagonal tubs that could be tiled across them and had to set out to fix that!As you probably noticed from the title and the photos, we're specifically talking about Ikea Skadis pegboards here, which have...
Videotape Vault (and fancy slip cases!)
Howdy, wonderful people!Some might say that VHS tapes are distant enough in the past now to be cool again, but I say they never stopped being cool to begin with! While those magnetic tapes may have faded from relevance for media distribution they remain an unmistakable icon of the cultural landscape...
Scrollform Cylinder
Howdy, wonderful people!Well, where do I start on this one?! As you've no doubt already noticed, it's a busy, detailed looking thing, and that was ultimately the point of it. I wanted a design that could use filament swapping to create graphic shapes, and thus get a complicated multimaterial...
Spiral Sovereign Crown
Howdy, wonderful people!Crown yourself monarch of wherever you happen to be with this convenient vase mode print! Yep, this was another challenge to myself to see if I could strictly abide by the rules of vase mode design but still design something evocative of regal headwear.Now, you'll probabl...
Secret Spray Stash
Hi hi, wonderful people!I've mentioned many times how much I love finding the little things that give something its identity, and make it immediately recognisable as itself. And this time that has been applied to aerosol cans! It turns out there are standards for the shape of these things, so it...
Extraplanetary Geared Stand
Hey there, wonderful people!Planetary gears are just the best! As a fan of making things overly complicated, it's hard to find a mechanism that looks more cool and mechanical than that. And the Planetary Phone Stand was always a favourite design, but it certainly has limitations. Most obviously,...
Springlatch Box
Howdy, wonderful people!I do love a nice latching mechanism! I could never get tired of exploring different ways to keep lids closed! But a big part of the appeal isn't so much the effectiveness of the latch (they're all generally pretty good, after all) but the tactile experience of closing...
Disengagement Canister
Howdy, wonderful people!There's something so satisfying about twist-locking containers, whether it's a fancy magnetic latch setup or a traditional screw thread. However, there's also something quite nice about containers where the lid remains attached when the thing is open, and those tw...
Pennant Column Vase
The elements of a design that give something it's something-ness... it's identity that makes it recognisable as the thing that it is... is something that is a constant point of interest when putting together designs that are supposed to give the impression of something, and this time I was c...
Articulated Bucket Loader
Chunky print-in-place wheels are fun! But that's not what drove (har har) this model - it was, as you probably guessed, the bucket. The wheel part is trivial in the scheme of things, but keeping the bucket viably printable without it being high risk of unbalancing and coming off the bed was most...
Scaffold Tub
Ah, I do love a nice industrial motif, and what is more industrial than big, exposed threads? This oversized tub rests on three hinged tripodian struts, and the aforementioned screw threads serve to extend those struts for extra coolness points. You can also just extend two of the struts and fold th...
Triple Axis Augmented Crate
Hi, wonderful people!Yay, complicated motion! Why have one hinge point for a lid when you can have three, right?! But seriously, this ridiculously complicated motion structure does achieve something significant - it allow the lid to pivot over the back of the box and end up flat against the back, ve...
Skull Tessellation Box
Hi, wonderful people!I do love a good tessellation! Here we have a set of expressive skull boxes that neatly fit into each other to efficiently tile two-dimensional space!It won't surprise you to know that the vast majority of the time on this project went into working out how to shape a stylise...
Hidey-Hole Doorstop (for TPU or similar)
Sometimes 3D printing can actually be quite practical! I needed a couple of door stops, the rubbery sort that you often find on doors that open into a tiled wall. I could perhaps have gone to a local hardware store, but I did have some TPU lying around, and I had already got caught up with the idea ...
Torus Weave Tub (vase mode!)
Ahoy-hoy, vase mode fans!I was, of course, trying to design something entirely different when I got the inspiration for this one. That is often how it goes, but it's invariably a good idea to run with it and see where it might lead!I had been making a bowl design that did share an element with t...
